


It's Called Blues For a Reason

by MU_I



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Keith needs a hug, Kidnapping, Lance Needs a Hug, Langst, Lotor needs a bayard in the face, M/M, Stockholm Syndrome, klangst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-01-23 21:39:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12517152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MU_I/pseuds/MU_I
Summary: “Lance.”And wow, Keith was really urgent now, pleading so hard for his rival that Lance knew he couldn’t possibly be real. Which meant great, his dying self had dreamt up some hallucination of the Red Paladin for some reason. And not because he totally may or may not have the largest unrequited crush of all time on the guy. Because Lance didn’t. Did not. Keith was a jerk. A hot-headed, -hot- jerk.“You need to keep talking to us,” Not Keith continued. “Try and concentrate. Don’t close your eyes and don’t fall asleep.”Lotor wants his new plaything to stop fighting and accept its new life, Keith wants all these new emotions to stop making his head hurt. Lance just wants his bed and a plate of Hunk's best in the universe brownies.Or, the one where a Lance gets captured by a way too friendly galra that somehow hasn't read the script for hero/villain interrogation.





	1. Things Go Badly

  **Things Go Badly**

 

Lance had always been the funny boy, the kind of class clown guy who joked around and if life ever failed him would probably make a killing for a year or two as the next hit comedian before washing out and staring in the occasional round of Celebrity Squares, but if anyone had ever come up and told him he’d be a sort of superhero spending his life up in space kind of fighting to save the *dramatic voice* entire universe from oversized purple kitties before he’d turned nineteen, well he’d flash the poor lunatic a cheery grin, the same one he saved for whenever his mama called their rag tag family to the latest trip to the sandy beach off the back of their cosy house or anytime Hunk announced he’d made brownies (God that man could cook, gooey insides and triple chocolate heart attack-on-a-plate goodness, Lance’s last meal was always going to be a tough throw up between Hunk’s best in the universe brownies and the classic but forbidden because c'mon, maintaining a bod this good required some serious sacrifice, cheeseburger), alarm bells ringing his head as he as innocently as possible flagged the nearest police cruiser to take the escapee back to their mental asylum.  

Yet here he was, barely out of the acne and jumped up emotions, read total mental breakdowns, of adolescence (puberty, now there’s a horror that no amount of Voltron badassery could ever hope to defeat), wielding an alien gun – the kind that gave spotty movie stereotypes of nerds wet dreams – and flying around in a metal robot lion that formed together with four other robots to make one giant kickass of evil defeating awesomness. He swears it’s not a Power Ranger rip-off. Even if Zarkon kind of looks like he could be the illegitimate son of Ivan Ooze and they’re all named after colours. Blue Ranger wishes he was as hot as Blue Paladin.

It turned out one major downside of being said superhero was that the bad guys didn’t have any sort of decency to wait and attack at some humane time – something he’d found out after the seventh or so falling out of covers at 3 a what the hell do you call this m. It had been who knows how long since that particular epiphany had hit him (along with a whole lot of galra weaponry)and now he’d lost track of exactly how many times his alarm clock had been a trumpeting elephant thrown through a wood chipper death wail. It had been bad enough before when he’d barely manage to make it to the castle kitchen in the hopes of sneaking something other than tasteless space goop as a snack before the walls started flashing an angry red and Allura’s dulcet tones were murmuring urgently overhead, calling all members to action, but now Save the Universe Time had been cutting into Lance’s beauty sleep schedule. Didn’t the galra know looks this good took time and care to maintain?

Either they didn’t know or did know but simply just didn’t care. Because for what must have been the hundredth time since being shot into space Lance’s mouth was thrown open in a sleepy yawn and gloved digits were rubbing daze and hurriedly tamed mocha strands from his eyes as he piloted Blue out of the way of the latest blast of fire, a luckless slab of space junk going up, suddenly finding itself struck with an unfortunate case of explosions behind him. He sighed softly in his seat, the fluttering of pulsing lit up dashboard and flight suit a poor replacement of the sweet embrace of darkness and comfort of soft covers swaddling his skin.

 _“Lance_.”

“Yeah I know Mullet, _pay attention_.”  

Mournfully downturned lines morphed into a widened grin as the youth pulled his self out of its slump, slipping back into the safezone of humour. He barely held back a snicker as he cheerily imitated the disgruntled teammate. He was getting pretty darn good at matching the gravelled tones. Not to brag, but even Coran would sometimes fall for the stand behind a door and pretend to be angry Keith trick. Angry Keith... so normal Keith.

Hunk and Lord Flamehead himself were the only ones never caught out, Hunk because he’d known the mischievous Cuban long enough to see the tricks coming three miles off and Keith because the guy knew there was no way he’d be caught dead yelling in the Castle's corridors at 7pm about how much better a certain sharpshooter was than the rest of the team.

Keith snorted derisively as another flash of colour sped past, barely missing Blue’s leg. “ _Yeah well that didn’t look like paying attention to me.”_

“Yeah well us sane people don’t usually get up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 4am to hit holograms.” Lance retorted grouchily, biting back a yelp as yet another spaceship cannon took a liking to Blue’s head. He almost screamed aloud in frustration, but instead settled for angrily wrenching the gear stick into new motion. Blue moved obligingly out of the way to the left. It was almost like the galra were aiming specifically for him.

“ _So you mean you’re not up at 5 curling your eyebrows?”_

Lance held back a growl. “You don’t curl eyebrows, Keith. Do you even hygiene?”

“ _Save it for the Castle, guys._ ” Pidge interrupted before the pair could descend further into squabbling infants, her voice quiet to the boom of assaulting fire. “ _Maybe focus on not dying now, yeah?”_

“He started it.” Lance whined unashamedly, his mouth pushing into a scolded toddler-like sullen pout.

 _“Well I’m finishing it.”_ The Green Paladin stated firmly as above him the emerald paint lion moved further behind Blue's head and out of his sight.

 _“Uh guys, anyone else noticing that they’re going after Lance?_ ” So he hadn't been the only one to notice the galra's unabashed favouritism. Hunk – man he would straight up kill for some of those brownies right now, a plate of scrumptious little pieces of heaven that he would curl up in bed to, far from any of the danger as so much as a stubbed toe – yelled frantically into Lance’s left ear.

 _“Probably because he’s the easiest to hit.”_ Keith sneered over the comm line, crimson streaking into a blur as the lion effortlessly coasted through the minefield expanse.

“ _Keith._ ” Shiro’s voice buzzed scathingly into existence as the previously silent leader joined into the conversation.

“ _Well it’s true.”_ Keith stated plainly. As if he were talking about the likelihood of rain rather than reaching in and ripping Lance’s heart out of his chest. And yeah, Lance could just see that smug grin plastered on the jerk’s face. _“Basic military tactics. Always go for the weaker target.”_

Splat. There went the organ, now clumsily spattered over Blue’s control panel.

Weaker target. The words echoed sadly in Lance’s mind, twisting the handle of the knife speared through his gut. Weaker target. The smile fell off his face as his shoulders trembled, beginnings of water gathering at the edges of his eyes. Makes sense they’d see him that way.

“ _Lance isn’t any-“_

_“Shiro, behind you!”_

_“Pidge, on your left-“_

_“-Hunk, keep them off me.”_

The team’s voices droned in and out of his ears, but instead of the normal clarity their words were unusually muffled, like someone had hit the mute button on a tv remote. No matter how hard he concentrated Lance just couldn’t bring himself to focus on them, Keith’s earlier insult stubbornly occupying the forefront of his mind.

 _Weaker target_.

And he was, wasn’t he? Pidge was smart, the genius that could hack anything, Hunk was their strength and engineer, Keith was the best pilot, the garrison’s greatest who’d only been kicked out for bad behaviour. Shiro was the expert, the man who had survived space and capture by the galra alone and for two years and now had the awesome alien hand that had won them so many victories. Shiro was irreplaceable, Keith was irreplaceable, they were all irreplaceable and Lance, Lance was just, just,

 _“Lance_!”

Lance stared up, broken from his reverie because Keith sounded panicked and Keith never sounded panicked, maybe for Shiro but not for Lance. Never for Lance. A screech died on his dried tongue as his throat closed up, aquamarine eyes blowing wide to panic, the crystal orbs looking up just in time to see the purple laser of doom blazing merry path straight for him.

“Oh shiiiiiiit-“

Lance barely caught Shiro’s reproachful mutter of _“Language_ ,” before suddenly he was moving, thrown against the lashing of seat belt as Blue’s entire body shuddered. He screamed, his head cracking painfully loud against screen as cerulean dials stuttered, one by one flicking dead to join the shadows rendering the edges of his vision to fuzzed darkness. Well at least whoever had hit him had been so kind as to turn the lights off.

He weakly attempted to raise his head and found he couldn’t, a damp line of something wet against his forehead dripping red into sliding shut lashes as all limbs groaningly called strike.

_“Lance,”_

A choked sob sounded over the line. Was Pidge crying?

_“Oh god, Lance-”_

And moaning? Why was Hunk moaning?

_“Lance, situation, now.”_

A drunken giggle lodged itself in his throat as woozy eyes spun in their sockets, fighting to make some semblance of sense of his pitch black surroundings. _“_ That’s the name, don’t wear it out now.”

“ _Fuck, Lance, he got hit bad.”_

And huh, Keith was actually sounding, concerned. Genuinely concerned. About him. Well that was new.

 _“Lance, buddy, you’re going to need to help us out. You got shot badly and Blue went down smoking. We can’t see you. You’re going to need to tell us where you are.”_ Shiro explained softly.

"I'm..." Lance grinned through his rapidly growing nausea, bile building up his throat, painting the backs of his teeth as he paused dramatically for effect. If his hands would co-operate and lift off from wherever they were curled over his sides they'd be beating out a low drum roll on the edge of his seat. “Somewhere.”

“ _Shit,"_  Pidge swore - since when did Pidge swear? _"He sounds half gone. Probably a head wound, maybe concussion. Tell Coran to get the pods ready.”_

 _“Lance.”_ And wow, Keith was really urgent now, pleading so hard for his rival that Lance knew he couldn’t possibly be real _._ Which meant great, his dying self had dreamt up some hallucination of the Red Paladin for some reason. And not because he totally may or may not have the largest unrequited crush of all time on the guy. Because Lance didn’t. Did not. Keith was a jerk. A hot-headed, ~~hot~~ jerk. _“You need to keep talking to us,”_ Not Keith continued. “ _Try and concentrate. Don’t close your eyes and don’t fall asleep.”_

And Lance tried. Really he did. And not just because it was dream Keith and the man was practically down on the ground begging for him to through his ear. But he was really tired, the world was spinning, less of a solid and more some possessed carousel ride that he _really_ wanted to get off of, and y’know, a nap sounded really good round about now. Not Keith would understand.

“ _Nanite guys,”_ Lance slurred, static crackling his cotton-stuffed ears as panicked voices washed out to silence, a tired grin slipping through the pained grunt as the last faded out, dream Keith frantically echoing his name, voice jumping in urgency and volume with each unanswered call.

Through the descending haze Lance sleepily wondered whether it would feel this good to have the real Keith worry that much about him. Probably. Not that it would ever happen though. Real Keith hated him. Lance's expression twisted to sadness as he remembered. Weaker target. That's all Keith would ever see him as. He held back a sob, for one horrendous moment painfully aware of all that was going on. Then he was gone, as dead to the world as the silenced lion he was trapped inside. 


	2. Badly Gone Things Get Decidedly Worse

** Badly Gone Things Get Decidely Worse **

 

Lance groaned awake slowly, his lashes inching up as pupils constricted, widening in confusion when instead of softspoken eggshell duck blue castle ceiling they instead found an unnerving blanket of inky darkness. It took a moment for him to realise that no, he wasn’t in his room, and no, his face wasn’t smooshed into the carpet in a clumsy faceplant after tumbling out of bed. With that realisation came the memory of exactly how his body had come to be plastered against the inner of Blue’s guts, charred scent of smoke curling off his barbecued skin as his legs stretched out over the walls like some unfortunate gecko just walked into a bug zapper. The fight, their chatter, Keith’s entire massacre of his emotions (Lance swallowed, chest suddenly far too tight as he recalled that exchange and tried his best to skip very quickly over that particular detail), losing his focus, getting hit, going _down._

He could vaguely remember Shiro’s fuzzed up voice saying he’d been shot badly. Anything past drew a total blank and a thank you call back later please. He paused, heart thumping a million miles an hour in sudden jailbreak attempt through his chest. How bad was badly? Like, bad, bad? Walk it off in a day bad? Unable to be a paladin bad?

Fear bubbled a new wave of nausea, a scream building its way up his throat as hysteria threatened to rob his breath away.

He swallowed the terror down and slowly took stock of the situation.

He wasn’t in a healing pod. Which meant he wasn’t back at the Castle. Which meant his team hadn’t come. _Did they know where he was?_ Was he just floating around the vast nothingness of space, doomed to die an unknown death of either no oxygen, food or entertainment, with no princess to woo or Red Paladin to pester? Or was he already dead? Was this the afterlife, because if so the pearly gates of Heaven looked suspiciously like the insides of a giant robot space lion with its power shut off.

He probably wasn’t a ghost. His insides felt like they’d been churned through a blender sixteen times and ghosts couldn’t feel things, right? Still, if he had died and was a ghost you could bet your bayard he’d be haunting the hell out of Keith.

Another low groan rumbled his throbbing chest as he attempted to lever his body up from wherever it had fallen.

Keyword in that being attempted.

His features flickered to a pained wince as his side exploded in searing fire, hands fumbling from where they’d been pinned beneath his belly to grip further round his stomach, the attempt instantly abandoned. His sight blurred, ears eerily stuffed full of fuzz, dazed blinking orbs keeping rhythm with each searing pound of sledgehammer cracked down on the back of his skull. He swallowed, throat burnt dry out, as if someone had struck a match to its insides. And then poured an entire can of gasoline down for good measure. He slid a tongue across his parched lips, the returning buzz of taste suspiciously metallic.

He gagged and decided he was comfortable enough where he was.

Which was when his entire world helpfully decided to tilt to the left axis, the universe shuddering as it tipped to the side like some offkilter seesaw ride. Lance flinched as dust and droplets of rubble fell from the ceiling to tickle his scalp, the darkened pocket he was trapped in threatening to collapse inward to the sudden earthquake.

Not earthquake, he realised in horror as a pained screech split his mind in two. Blue.

He groaned, half aware and less than half alive, through his daze. Why was Blue trembling? Then the sounds of what was suspiciously close to a buzz saw resumed and he realised they were cutting through the lion, cutting through his gorgeous girl to get to _him_. Which significantly lowered the chances of whoever it was on the other side of the metal being his team come to drag his sorry ass out of the pilot seat and to the Surprise You’re Still Alive Party they’d organised when he’d been out of it. And if it wasn’t his team then it could only be whichever stupid galra had hit jackpot and shot a stressing paladin down, which meant, even better, pop the confetti and champers he’d been captured by the galra.

The colour drained from his face because oh shit that was not the type of happy rainbows and warm fuzzy feeling filling nice thought. See Shiro had managed to live longer than two minutes past his capture, but Shiro was _Shiro_ and Lance was not fancying his chances against whichever monstrosities the big bads of the cosmos quite literally threw him at. Plus, no offence to the man and his prosthetics, but Lance was quite fond of both his arms and generally liked all his limbs attached to his body, you know, where they belonged? He was not about to trade in a hand or leg for upgrade, not even if it was some badass alien upgrade that would let him slice galra down like the kind of cheap plastic cheese you could buy back home for barely a buck.

 _Home_. Now there was a happy rainbows nice thought. It was just a shame he was probably never going to see it again. Likely because they were in completely the wrong spacezone to just run randomly into the big ball of blue green pollution and so far Coran had been dead set against anything more than so much as a day off. But more likely because he’d be dead.

And there went all that warm fuzziness.

He groped at his front and sides, blindly pawing both hands round unsteadily, hoping that the universe may for once take pity and by some miracle provide his bayard.  But no, that would be too easy, wouldn’t it? The universe hated Lance, and showed it by screwing him over in oh so many ways. Let’s count the worst down from 10 together shall we?

10\. His team probably thought he was dead. Even if he wasn’t would they even care enough to come for him?

9\. His helmet was broken, or at least, breaking, if the glass shard of visor sunken through his cheek was anything to go by.

8\. He couldn’t feel his legs. In fact trying to move anything past head and fingers fed a new scream to his tastes like asphalt tongue and opened up a whole new tin of instant microwavable nope.

7\. Blue wasn’t responding. At all. No matter how many times he brokenly rasped her name from his clogged throat. And he highly doubted the classic solution of hit it till it worked again applied to sentient alien robot lions.

6\. His gun was missing

5\. He was blind. And not in the way of the sappy ‘love is blind’ one-liner he’d so often spout to hot alien girls they met on each new planet. He was blind, actually could not see a single thing in the dark fog that had descended to grip his vision.

4\. He was blind and alone.

3\. He was blind, alone and captured. Probably going to die by some run of the mill galra grunt who’d hang the helmet above their fireplace and have one hell of a story to tell come the next drinking night.

2\. Definitely going to die.

And number 1, the worst thing the universe had ever given him to totally screw his life over and prove just how much it hated the young Cuban’s guts, worse even than a mongrel’s death at the hands of some third rate galra grunt? Keith Kogane. The most dropdead gorgeous bundle of ebony raven mullet and teen angst Lance Mclain had ever had the fortune to lay baby blues on. And the misfortune of having to deal with ever since.  Anger issues and bad hairstyles had never looked so unbearingly annoyingly _drool_. Yeah, thank you universe. Cheers a bunch.

With a deep breath and kittenish mewl Lance peeled himself off Blue’s walls, breaking into a round of mental self-applause as he managed a step then another, and believing for one glorious moment everything to be fine – before suddenly the floor was rushing up to meet his face.

He landed hard, the impact jarring new life into the agony that was his ribcage. He choked breath, and dragged himself into a slow crawl, holding in a victorious woop as clenched knuckles found solid, fingers unfurling and reaching across the ground to curl round the edges of some part that must have caved in off of poor Blue’s insides – a hunk of something hard that would be sure to give some poor luckless galra one hell of a headache – pulling the improvised weapon closer to wherever his chest was – seemingly just in the nick of time as suddenly the sickening clanks rumbling over his head cut to an abrupt close, a thin crack of light peeking out through the murk.

He swallowed down his fear as an uneasy silence followed, broken only by the sound of slow shuffling as that thin crack petered out to new shadows, galra grunts filing in. like some tacky horror flick, two alien feet appeared from nowhere to move past his hidey hole, armoured boot toes walking by inches from his face.

"Any sign of him?" Grunt numero uno muttered sullenly.

"No. Slippery bastard must be hiding." Grunt numero dos answered. 

"Let's just grab him and go. General's getting antsy."

Lance swallowed a cry of outrage. He was the Blue Paladin, mythical saver of the universe, not some drowned rat only good enough to be the damsel in distress, thank you very much. He wasn’t going down like a chump. No sirree.

Lance went down like a total chump. But in his defence it was very dark, the galra were very big, and he was very much screwed to high hell. He launched himself at the first galra with a hearty battle cry, crawling from out beneath the desk of Blue’s panel and charging the turned back straight on, plank raised over his head brought down on the skull with venomous intent – only for the plank to crumble in half in his hands, a hulking, now furious galra whipping round, fangs bared in a bestial snarl, eyes pigged together and looking seriously _pissed_.

Lance gave a distressed yip and swung a left hook towards the alien’s chest in a move so stupid he could almost _hear_ Keith’s scathing voice of “Idiot” in his ear. He stumbled clumsy steps away, a screech warbling his throat as his stinging, possibly broken fingers squawked protest, withdrawing feeling as if they’d just punched a solid lead wall.

Stumbled clumsy steps away, backing right into the chest of the galra that had come up from behind him.

As Keith would so eloquently say, he was royally fucked.

He raised his head up slowly, the oh no frozen on his lips, stuck somewhere between the messages of his brain as his mind short circuited into a dumb mess, eyes rising up just in time to see the baton-like stick streaking for his nose.

Then it was one almighty scream of agony and nighty nighty lights out Lancey.

…

The second time he woke up it was to shackled hands dangled limply over armoured back and a torso slung over a padded shoulder in fireman’s lift, his butt raised inelegantly up in the air, one suit-gripped cheek smashed into the side of galra face.  

A wide smile split the grogginess from his lips. “Oh darling, at least take me to dinner first.” He simpered, batting his eyelashes and smacking his lips playfully at the galra next in line behind him. Who apparently wasn’t one for the wine and dine because seconds later the alien’s rosy purple cheeks were flushing an angered shade of magenta red. He barely had chance to struggle a kick against the steel trap grip of the guy holding him before suddenly a shadow fell over his head and a familiar stick was blocking his vision.

He sighed.

“Again? Really guys, come on-“

…

Lance grunted awake for a third time, chugging ragged breath like it was some new discovery as he groggily clawed his way back into reality. Someone really needed to tell the galra you do not solve all your problems by knocking them unconscious. He blinked his eyes open. Then found the desire to snap them immediately back shut.

He was in a boring old prison cell, emphasis on the boring.  The suffocatingly claustrophobic room he was held in, barely a third of the size of his room back at the Castle, was just as agonisingly dull as it was effective in its imprisonment. His fear returned tenfold as he forced his eyes to each of the room’s corners, taking in the bleached medical white walls, before his gaze rose to the ceiling and the futuristic blue glowstick cuffs strapping his arms uncomfortably up past his ears to a hook above his head. The entire place screamed of alien torture chamber.

“I love what you’ve done with the place, very minimalistic, such a statement, but might I suggest adding something, like uh, anything?”

The galra posted at what he guessed must be the cell door was silent, coolly watching him with an unamused expression. Well that just wouldn’t do.

 “Some curtains, a window, bed, escape hatch.” Lance joked. He craned his head past his arms to the sides, cracking a watery smile that probably wasn’t fooling either of them. “You know, some colour would really brighten this place up, how’d you feel on the colour blue?”

He sighed, exasperated. “You know this works so much better if more than one of us speaks. What’s your name? You aliens have names, right? Mine’s Lance, but you can call me Total Hottie Supreme Paladin.” The guard remained silent. Rude. “You know what, Imma call you Muscles.” Lance chirped.

The door slid open, another galra bigger than any he’d ever seen marching in. Muscles came alive, chattering to the newcomer in excited tones. Lance understood only one thing in the stream of otherwise gibberish. Lotor. He'd heard the name before, back in hushed conversations between Allura and Coran that he probably definitely wasn't meant to hear but it had been late at night and he'd been hungry and that plate of Hunk's muffins had been calling for help, defenceless in the fridge.

Message delivered, the second galra left, the door closing decidedly shut behind the furry back.

“Hey now, easy buddy,” Lance garbled, his voice jumping up in panic as the guard strode forward, getting closer and closer. “We can just talk about this, manno e alienno," He blanched, panicking as he cowered as far away as possible into the wall pressing his back as Muscles's steps slammed the bone tiles. Somehow he got the feeling the alien wanted to do something more than talk. "That’s too close, personal space and politeness and all and now I really would appreciate if you could stay the hell away – okay that’s way too close now.” He gave a nervous laugh. “Definitely too close.”

Muscles leaned his face down into Lance's face, rancid breath pouring out off elongated canines. Lance's nose screwed, when was the last time the guy had taken a shower? 2 months ago? 

"Make your jokes now, Supreme Paladin." Muscles rasped in broken English. "You will not be so joking soon. The Prince approaches."

And didn't that just sound lovely? If Lance had wanted to run before he was itching to sprint now, would probably even set some new record the speed he would bolt out of that door.

"Royalty, for little old me? Oh you shouldn't have."

"Soon you will wish we hadn't." Muscles promised darkly, his arm raising the weapon that Lance was already far too well acquainted with. And farewell world.


	3. Teen Angst Central

Keith was pissed and what was worse he didn’t know why. Yeah okay, maybe he’d just watched one of his teammates go down in a blaze of dumb mistakes, clumsy unglory and purple laser fire, with no smoking wreckage to be found even after hours of frantic searching, but this was the Blue Paladin, _Lance,_ the guy who had his hackles up and raised and a fist slammed hard to the wall five seconds in to opening his mouth. Lance with his perfect baby blues that you could just get lost staring into, the depths so insanely, impossibly deep one glance and you were drowning never to find your way out of, those blush lips with white dentals blinding anyone in a five-mile radius with their 1million watt doped up grin and that catlike figure and hyperactive form practically vibrating through the floor tiles as feet hopped or jumped or skipped or anything but staying still. Lance, the guy Keith more than hated, who set Keith’s teeth on edge and grinding into his bottom lip with just one whooped crow of Mullethead and had him abruptly leaving the room immediately after the idiot entered it. So why the fuck then, was his heart plummeted to the pads of his boots and the back of his skull ticking off to the warning signs of one very bad headache as his brain shouted everything was so _wrong wrong wrong_?

“Stupid, stupid, **stupid**.” He muttered beneath his breath, yanking his helmet off his head and slamming it angrily onto Red’s control panel as he stood and just as angrily stormed out the lion. And was nearly bowled over with the urge to just be alone. His breaths came out, short and heavy like a drowning man desperately grasping for oxygen, his eyes flitting to the nearest escape point. His feet hurriedly followed them.

“Keith,” Allurra started from somewhere behind him. He didn’t turn around, just kept walking. She must have sensed something was wrong and come to greet them. It should have been Hunk – would have been Hunk’s friendly, jovial tones calling after him to offer an ear or plate of calories, worried that he wasn’t doing so well, that maybe he really was pissed enough to punch that wall, but Hunk was slumped over, head hung in his hands and softly crying next to an equally teary Pidge who was trying her best to choke coherent English out of fat sobs and comfort the big guy. And it was so wrong because Hunk shouldn’t be crying, Pidge shouldn’t be crying, Shiro shouldn’t be stood in the centre of the bay with his arms folded and that tight, misty-eyed look he always had when remembering his time with the galra and Lance should be casually leaning against Blue’s leg and bragging over how much galra butt he’d whopped. But Lance was gone and never coming back-

“I’m fine.” Keith ground, practically growled, without looking back. Except he so obviously wasn’t. Except all he wanted to do was take Red and find whichever galra had shot Lance down and tear its fuzzy head off those enormous shoulders. And then shove his bayard into that soft fleshy fuzz where the sun don’t shine.

The bay doors slid shut behind his back, blocking him from sight and finally Keith could breathe, could choke out his own fat sobs and raise a finger to brush a tear – tear? It wasn’t, couldn’t be a tear, couldn’t be that he was crying for the idiot dumb enough to get hit by such a big laser he should have known to dodge out of the way hours before it even got close to powering up. Keith stared incredulously at the watery blob hanging off the edge of his glove. He was. Keith Kogane really was crying over Lance freaking Mclain.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” He repeated, the tear melting off the glove and dribbling to the floor as fingers bunched into tight fists that hung stationary at his sides as he thundered down the softly glowing Castle hallway, brushing past and pointedly blanking a worrying Coran who galloped, expression fearful as he passed, heading in the direction Keith had just come. Allura must know now, he realised. Either Hunk had finally snapped out of his slump enough to communicate, or Pidge or Shiro had told her.

A rock sat ugly in his belly, mind unusually hollow as he slipped into his quarters and threw himself onto the bed, for the first time in since he could remember overcome by the strange urge to pull the covers up to his ears. He curled his body into where wall met wall and did exactly that, feeling so small and tiny – less like a man and more like a child just woken from some particularly horrific nightmare except Keith was awake and Lance was gone gone **_gone_** somewhere no amount of opened searching eyes could bring back – as he wrapped the blankets up over his shoulders and tucked his chin to his knees. There were definite tears now – more than one and Keith couldn’t pretend any longer that he wasn’t crying over Lance’s, Lance’s what?

 _Lance’s death_.

That realisation had even more tears, the fountain pumping out faster and harsher as he gagged for air, a panicking rabbit caught in the headlights as he fought, consciousness swimming and the world all of a sudden dizzyingly blurry. He knew he shouldn’t be breathing like that – as if he was trapped and pinned down in a pro-wrestler’s chokehold – but every time he thought back to Lance – Lance’s scream, Lance’s whimper, Lance’s fuzzed up voice sleepily murmuring that just one nap wouldn’t hurt, Keith couldn’t breathe and back under, to rage and panic and uncontrollable, gnawing anxiety that had him gurgling, half out of reality he dropped.

…

Keith didn’t take the next days well. None of the team did. The Castle was dead, each of its inhabitants occasionally staggering out of their rooms to wander, corpses dead on their feet, to search out food after hours of arguing with growling stomachs. But unexpectedly it was Keith taking Lance’s absence worse than anyone, worse even than the boy’s best friend Hunk, who at least managed a small forkful of space slop after hours of gentle cajolement from Coran. Keith hadn’t eaten once since the week of the incident. He’d thrown up the third day, passed out the fourth, body surrendering to the wave of darkness that had slowly battered his conscious down after endless hours spent woodenly staring at blank walls or ragingly swiping what little objects he held to his name off shelves.

He stared at the skeleton in the mirror, hardly able to recognise the unkempt greased up hair and sunken cheeks as his own reflection. There were bags dragging his eyes down now, shadowed and puffy blotches to match the bloodshot spider cracks of crimson lopsidedly running over the puffy windows, drips of water near always plastered at the edges of the lids, one name’s mention short of spewing loose. The ghost’s nose scrunched as his nose twitched up to choke air out of the blocked up tunnels, the movement stiff to the mixture of dried moisture and mucus caked dry in and around his nostrils. Cracked lips set in a fixed downward slope; the colour paled and previously smooth surface choppy, flimsy chunks torn out to worrying canines.  

Lance would cock his head and jokingly tell him he looked like teen angst central while his hands perfected his hair back into immaculate style and blinding whites smiled that doofus grin. But Lance wasn’t here and that thought had Keith’s knuckles, now dusted burnt copper, drawing off the mirror, now splintered. He gasped, drawing breath in then out, concentrating his breathing as slowly his shoulders relaxed from where they’d bunched around his neck. But he still couldn’t get that lump out his throat or lap the bile off the backs of his teeth.

He left the room wordlessly, shuffling out and heading for who knows where. He didn’t care, not really. Just needed somewhere to go, couldn’t look at himself any longer or the guilt would take over – why didn’t you save him, he’s gone now and it’s your fault, you were an ass to him and you never said sorry, never got to the chance to say you’re sorry and that’s your fault too. And Lance’s death may make him feel bad, but knowing that he never did and never would, that the paladin probably died thinking Keith hated him… that felt the worst of all.

It was a surprise when he found himself in the training room. He hadn’t gone near the place, not since Shiro softly suggested training matches might help let some of his rage out and halfway into the fight that rage had taken over, well of emotions throwing reasoning and sanity overboard and his strikes had gotten faster, harsher, stronger until he’d knocked the unexpecting Shiro onto his back but even then he hadn’t stopped, still seeing red because Lance wasn’t coming home, would never have his back or push him out the way of training bots- and almost torn the Black Paladin’s throat out.

His breath was ragged, the wrenched gasps doubling their intensity as he walked, awkwardly, as if moving through jello, over to the weapons rack and picked a sword up – not his bayard, that still sat beneath his bed from where he’d guiltily shoved it out of sight – twisting it over in a tight circle, testing its weight in his hands.

Grimness twisted the set line into a grimace, slope of shoulders tightening as body took on its drilled stance, muscles coiling tight as they prepared for action.

“Begin training Level Five.” Keith commanded, voice sharp as the blade clenched tightly in his hands.

He shut his mind off, let himself slip back into the familiar mentality of combat, though the rage stayed, unnatural and clunky, rising and peaking his world into a thick crimson daze as he plunged the blade, ripping it in and out vehemently of each galra’s stomach.

He didn’t stop when a galra shot his leg – a shot that Lance would never have allowed to happen. Didn't scream or back away when another nearly lopped an arm off after getting too close - too close that Lance would long have dealt with. He kept going, sternly hanging on determined to the scruff of galra neck as meaty paws slammed bayonet-like blade in and out of his own back and his sight blurred all together, the galra – a galra Lance would never have left alive – slamming him into the wall. Keith screamed but refused to let go, one hand drawing off the lock to raise the blade and push it deep into the exposed skull.

He didn’t stop until each pixel was a corpse flashing in and out of existence, then blipping out of being entirely. Only then did he allow his body to collapse into a messy heap, his arms hanging like dead weight, blade pushed into his lap and legs splaying out, he was too tired to draw them in.

Only then did he finally allow himself to break down and cry.

…

Far away, in his cell somewhere halfway across the universe, Lance floundered awake, his arms jerking  above his head into unwilling animation like a helpless marionette’s, a sharp yelp screeching out of his dried up lips as sudden jets of water slammed into his side, the freezing powerful burst completely unexpected and snapping him harshly back into reality – a reality he feverently wished was just some horrible dream his mind had cooked up on an especially self-loathing day.

His teeth chattered, clashing together as he shivered uncontrollably, the sudden burst shutting off just as abruptly as it had appeared.

“T-t-t-hat’s on-e-e-e h-ell of a w-wake up c-c-c-call,” he muttered weakly through the warring dentals, forcing his gaze off the exit and to the darkened silhouette of the galra in the corner. Even nearly totally obscured in the shadow Lance could tell something was different about this one; whether it was the much smaller, almost human-sized build, or the way in which he so effortlessly commanded the guard galra holding the hose, with the bored lazy flick of only one finger, as if he didn’t even have time to use the entire hand.

“My deepest apologies,” Dulcet tones simpered as the figure emerged, stepping into the light, voice equally as draped in silver as the long, luscious locks dripping off the alien’s head. “But I do enjoy a captive audience. Especially ones that are awake.”

“Oh h-h-har-har-r, capt-i-i-ve audience, t-t-totally get that o-one.” Lance griped sarcastically. He glanced off his latest visitor and down to his feet, horrified to find the edges around the torn up nails turning a sick shade of so definitely not healthy purple.

Lance paled, hissing in response as the Prince – come on even he could put two and two together and come up with one homicidal ruler – strode closer, the hiss stretching to a feral snarl as slender soft fingers hooked under his jaw and worked his face up to face a hawkish, almost possessive glare. He gulped, unable to stop a shiver running up his spine. The Prince laughed, the sound harsh and stinging like broken glass shoved through his ears. And suddenly Lance wasn’t quite so eager to ask which conditioner his captor used.


End file.
